Malaysia/Singapore

This post is long over due...I've been highly unmotivated because of the torrential downpours we've been having in Surat. So...the Malaysia trip...I don't really have much good to say about this trip. It was the epitome of poor planning and obnoxiousness. For 90% of the trip the teachers were required to travel separately from the students (I was able to travel with the students in Singapore because of an accident).

On Monday the 21st we made our way to Penang, Malaysia. For some unexplainable reason we stayed in a student dormitory, which included a bed and a shared shower. The campus was far from town so the only way to get to town was by our private teacher bus. The highlight of the day was that I did get to eat some very tasty Indian food for dinner (especially the naan bread :D ).

The next day the teachers 'toured' the city. We started at Kek Lok Si Temple which is a Chinese temple. It was interesting but I've reached a point where all Buddhist temples start to blur to blur together. Then we went to Dharmikarma Burmese temple which is also a Buddhist temple :( After going to TWO temples we spent 4 hours in an overpriced shopping mall (no explanation was really given for this insane amount of time).

We spent the night in the mini-bus traveling to Kuala Lumpur. We woke up at Batu Cave which is a Hindu temple. The temple was obviously in a cave about halfway up a hill/mountain. To get to the temple we had to climb 272 steps...I believe that the other American teacher and I were the only 2 to actually go up to the cave. The temple was interesting mostly because it was in a cave and it was non-Buddhist. After the temple we went to twin towers to meet the students (who had been waiting for hours). After collecting the students and eating lunch (YAY SUBWAY!) we went to our hotel, which was pretty nice. For some reason my room only had 1 window which opened to the hotel hallway, this was actually nice since it made the room really dark. That evening we went to the Chinese market with the students to shop for stuff.

On the 24th we went to Jahor Baru where we stayed at yet another sparse dormitory. The next day we went to Singapore. At Malaysian immigration a small group of students and the teachers were confused by the bus system and once we got it figured out the Thai teachers didn't want to get on the same bus as the students, because they were supposed to be traveling alone. However, we found out the next bus wasn't for another hour so I was told to go with the students :D. I told the students that now they are my tour guides and had to tell me how to get everywhere. We started by getting their tickets back to Hat Yai and then ate some Thai food for lunch. After eating we went to the Merlion Statue where we were supposed to meet the Thai teachers for a checkpoint, but they weren't there. We figured this was because we were really late for the checkpoint. We spent a bunch of time taking pictures of the harbor and the mini-merlion statue (the big one was in a box/hotel room thing :( ). Then we went to Sentosa island (checkpoint 2) where we had some ice cream and looked at the rides. The students started to get worried because the other teachers were late for the checkpoint and they didn't have much time before they had to go catch their bus. Fortunately, the other teachers showed up before the students had to leave...but just barely.

Overall, I didn't have a lot of fun on this trip...Singapore was fun but Malaysia wasn't. I highly doubt I will go on this trip again...unless it's drastically overhauled.

Pictures coming soon.

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